


Rhapsody in Blue (with grace notes of gold)

by mobius_stripper



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22359181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobius_stripper/pseuds/mobius_stripper
Summary: A Nebula character study, making up stuff about the five years in Endgame.Just needed to write out the transition of Nebula being screamy and dramatic to guarded and withdrawn and then sassy and swaggering.  I really like the ease she has with herself as she’s strutting past (and casually insulting) Scott.  Also she calls War Machine Rhodey and he called her Blue and it’s just so cute that she has a friend now.
Relationships: Nebula & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Nebula & Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 93





	Rhapsody in Blue (with grace notes of gold)

**Author's Note:**

> A rhapsody in music is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, color, and tonality.

There’s nothing to do in space. At least until the next thing breaks. 

Nebula is messing around with the communication system. Tony can hear her swearing a lot (and pleading occasionally) at the stupid ship, at the furry kleptomaniac who used tape on practically every wire in the console, at Kraglin, at the universe.

Once she gives up, they go back to silence.

Nebula is staring at the light in his chest. 

She clearly needs a hug or something, and oh, Tony remembers being that young and self-destructive and guilty. He’s still self-destructive and guilty (so, _so_ guilty) but he’s not young anymore.

“This one comes off,” he says conversationally. “The first one didn’t. The first one was about…” he holds up one hand and measures to his palm, “this deep into me. Some hack doctor who had no place trying to save my life did it anyway. Attached a magnet to a car battery so the shrapnel in my chest wouldn’t kill me. I used to make weapons, I was an asshole to everyone, I honestly can’t even remember if I ever did anything worthwhile before that. Either from all the booze or all the denial… If I were him, I’d have let me die.”

Tony adjusts his weight against the most comfortable bit of wall. Nebula hasn’t blinked or left the room or stabbed anyone yet, so he takes that as his cue to continue.

“He died. Helping me. His family had already been killed, and he… he said it was always the plan, that he was going to be with his wife and children again.”

He doesn’t add anything else. Pepper-therapy has made Yinsen easier to talk about. But what happened on Titan… that trauma is going to be super fun to deal with in the future, supposing he’s still alive to be damaged by it.

“My father would make me and my sister battle. Every time Gamora won, he would replace a piece of me. So I would be better. But she won _every time_.” Nebula raises her own hand, making the plates pop. 

“Families are rough.”

“She used to argue with me,” Nebula pipes up three hours later.

Tony nods agreeably. “That’s what siblings do. Or so I’m told.”

“She tried to turn me from our father. But I was a good daughter and I hated her. Because she was his favorite and she didn’t want to be, because she was better than me all the time but she left and she was supposed to be the best for _him_.”

He settles for making a noise at the back of his throat because really, what do you say to that.

“Gamora, she kept asking me to come with her. Saying we had to stop Thanos from getting the Stones. But then she… she told him where to find the Soul Stone. For me. Not for her idiot. Or the fox or the tree or even for herself.”

Tony closes his mouth over his questions. His many questions. 

“The first time I went to space, it was 2012. Tesseract. New York meets Chitauri… There was a nuke. Loki, you remember him?”

“He was 100% a dick,” states Nebula, channeling Gamora-channeling-Quill.

Tony loses his train of thought. Then he laughs. He laughs so hard he might have re-fractured his ribs.

“That was good, A+ on the delivery. I like you, Blue,” he says once he gets his breath back.

Nebula flinches. “No one’s ever said they liked me.” 

“Well, that’s… sad.”

They’re getting maudlin. Some kind of other mental stimulation is required. Something that doesn’t involve feelings. Tony remembers the backgammon board Yinsen made once upon a cave. Doesn’t seem like Nebula’s speed. With the junk immediately available to him, all he comes up with is flick football.

* * *

Nebula sees the people waiting for Tony when they arrive. The only person who might ever have done that for her is gone. She lets Tony go, supported by his others, to get medical attention. Despite him being malnourished and feeble, without him in her personal space she feels weak, so she sits and allows herself to be powerless for a few minutes.

Rocket climbs up beside her and pets her hand. She turns it over so he’s stroking her palm because now he is the only one in the whole of existence who can remember Gamora with her.

Pepper does indeed love Nebula. Nebula isn’t one for facial expressions, but as far as Tony can tell she doesn’t hate that Pepper switches between being weepy and thanking her and asking if she needs food or a charging station or a drink. And because Pepper is a miracle wrapped in a blessing strutting around in four inch heels, she doesn’t find it (very) creepy that sometimes Nebula is just there, in Tony’s recovery room, making sure he’s still breathing.

Nebula is staring at Rhodey’s leg braces. Tony winces a little, because it would make sense space assassins don’t have manners. Based on all the shit that’s happened to her (and she probably never told him the worst bits), he can kind of guess why other people’s wounds fascinate her so much. At least she isn’t trying to steal them like Rocket. Who only wants one of them so he can see Rhodes gimp around.

“James Rhodes. My friends call me Rhodey.” He holds out his hand.

Nebula refocuses first on the hand and then his face. 

“You can call me Rhodey. If you want. We’re like an exclusive club of people that have lived with Tony Stark and not strangled him.”

“Nebula,” she says, shaking his hand. “I only felt the urge to kill him ten times.”

“Wow, that’s got to be a record low for you, Mr. Stank.”

Tony flips him off.

“He taught me football. It was fun.”

“Wait, football?”

Nebula pulls the foil triangle from her belt pouch. 

“Aww, that’s fine for space and all, but now that you’re here, let me show you the magic of foosball.”

“She’s got as many daddy issues as you do,” Rhodey remarks after they return from the Garden, slapping Tony’s hand away from the IV port. “Stop pulling that.”

“It itches,” Tony whines. “So, I’m thinking build-your-own-burgers for the reception. Do cyborgs eat cheeseburgers? Also, are you okay with her sitting next to you, I swear she only gets stabby if you annoy her. Just don’t tell any War Machine stories and you’ll make it out with all your limbs.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. 

“What, she kept me alive for three weeks in space, you kept me alive for three years at MIT, I think there’s a certain symmetry…”

“You think she’s going to stick around for the wedding?”

Tony sighs. “She’s got nowhere and no one. I thought I’d give her a chance to have that not be true.”

Nebula is sitting on the steps of the _Benetar_ , like it’s her little embassy and it is kind of is. So Pepper approaches with purpose and without fear but never actually touches the ship. Nebula seems to appreciate it.

“I wasn’t sure if Tony had _really_ asked you, or just had a fever-dream about asking you, but he has a room,” she gestures to the Avengers building behind her, “for you. He did that the first time too, after New York, made up a bunch of suites for all of the Avengers without consulting them. You don’t have to live there if you don’t want to, we just wanted you to know that you have a place here. Rocket’s already made himself comfortable. Also Tony says that he wants a rematch.”

Nebula looks at her with those wide black eyes before finally nodding. Pepper beams back.

Rocket creeps up next, holding a box of junk and cables in his paws. “Most of the ship’s drives are toast, I was kind of wondering if you could do me a favor. They still do _paper_ on this planet, can you believe that? But Stark has some barely decent tech and I figure with the adapters Quill used for his music, I could… If you had any videos in your headspace, can I have some?” The ‘please’ that follows is so quiet, Nebula almost doesn’t hear it.

“Alright.”

It takes her a few minutes before she can bring herself to start projecting. Rocket stays uncharacteristically quiet, which helps. She calls up the memory of Yondu Udonta’s funeral and lets it play. For both of them. And at the end, when the visual is only the ship and a haze of hair, Gamora’s voice echoes ‘you will always be my sister’. 

They watch all the memories she has of _them_. She feels even more wrung out and exhausted than she did being tortured by Thanos. But somehow, there is a looseness in her chest as well. The fox is still growling about her lying to Groot on Berhert though. Like she didn’t save their lives.

* * *

Nebula uses the room. It’s different having a place that’s hers and not just a Gamora-shaped void to exist in. 

Once Pepper discovers Nebula in the communal area, she brings _paperthings_ , ‘magazines’ she calls them, to show her furniture and clothes so that Nebula can now have _stuff_ in her room. ‘Social bonding’ Stark’s AI explains. Nebula figures out this is also what Rhodes is doing with foosball and Romanov with sparring. Tony’s version seems to involve food more than anything. 

“Hey Eeyore, how kicks?” Tony sips a protein shake spiked with Xorrian elixir. He offers her a packet of trail mix. This time she takes it.

“I am… good,” she tests the words as they come out carefully. “Until I remember.” No need to ask ‘remember what?’.

“Sounds like you’re in fair shape then. I just wanted to let you know, Pep and I’ll be leaving the complex soon. I set it up with the landlord, you can stay or go but I… I’m not an Avenger any more, not a Guardian of the Cosmos or whatever. I’m gonna finally marry her, you’re invited to the wedding by the way, pull a Barton and get a farm and a family and let all youse pretend you can handle things without me.”

Nebula probably doesn’t understand two-thirds of what he just said, but he’s a little disappointed her expression doesn’t even flicker. He kind of thought she’d miss him. So much for space survival buddies.

“Can I visit?”

“Oh. Yeah! Yeah, I’d like that.”

She thinks Rhodes actually starts tearing up the first time she calls him ‘Rhodey’. And then when she unwinds enough to ‘sass him’ for being old and sentimental. Romanov winks at her. Rocket is too busy eating fig skins out of the trash to comment.

“Nonono. You two aren’t allowed to team up. I’m not gonna survive both of you being sassy together.”

“You’re a disappointment to the Air Force,” Carol Danvers says from the doorway. Everyone goes on high-alert. “At ease. This is a social call, mostly. You,” she points at Rocket and Nebula. “You willing to be Guardians of the Galaxy again? Because there’s a lot of universe out there and there’s only one of me.”

Rocket doesn’t answer, and not because he’s chewing. Nebula surprises everyone, maybe herself most of all, when she says “I’ll help.”

Rocket clears out Gamora and Mantis’ cabins. Unspoken is that it’s her choice which one she lives in while they’re on the ship. 

In the end, she picks Gamora’s. She still can’t do ‘nice’, but she comes close.

“You missed these.” She gives Rocket three Chitauri energy cores. “Keep them in a shielded box.”

Rocket’s whiskers tremble with excitement. She hopes he heard her about the shielding.

Gamora has- _had_ a small armory, much smaller than expected; probably in an attempt at child-proofing. 

The first time, her sleep is not easy. It smells musty, maybe still circulating the dirt from Titan, and she keeps pulling black and pink hairs out of the pillow. The charge port is in need of new circuits and there might be something living in the panel behind the bed. 

She grows accustomed to all of it, as Gamora must have once.

“Sooo, you’re a hero now. A super-Smurf.”

Nebula bows her head a little in acknowledgement.

“Awesome, you ever need anything patched, you know who to call.”

“Thanks.” It doesn’t come out too badly, a bit stiff and sarcastic. She regrets that she will never get to say it to Gamora. “And for the fox.”

“It’s a rabbit, but sure, it was our pleasure. Mostly mine. Pepper refuses to have anything to do with rabbits. That’s not just a pregnancy rule, that’s an all-the-time rule apparently. I gotta go, we have a class on not-screwing-this-up in twenty minutes. Have fun storming the castle!”

Nebula picks up the stuffed animal that was left on her bed. It’s blue and wearing an Avengers t-shirt. She pulls at the long ears. It’s softer than Rocket except for the crescent of hard silver around its eye that is supposed to match her optical module. The ears remind her of her sister and her stupidly long hair. The thought doesn’t hurt _quite_ as much as before.

General Okoye gives her a piercing once-over. Nebula returns it with interest.

All the women in the room clock Rhodey reaching for the gun that isn’t strapped to him right now. Romanov calls him a wimp under her breath.

The general smirks, Nebula sneers, then they come to an unspoken agreement. 

“I’m not shaving my head,” Romanov announces cheekily.

“I might,” says Danvers from the other side of the hologram.

Rhodey takes her to visit the lake house after a particularly bad op. Rocket refuses to leave the med facility until his fur grows back, and Rhodey wasn’t going to say anything but he’s concerned about space-rabies near the baby.

Pepper looks down at the still-sparking metal stub where Nebula’s foot used to be and wordlessly shows her into Tony’s garage-lab. The tiny human in her arms doesn’t do anything but snuffle. 

Tony gives her free reign over the production units, so she sinks into the fog of fabricating and soldering and doesn’t surface for hours. She doesn’t think about the little girl, too well-fed and happy and yellow to match the one in her memory file, but it aches in her chest all the same.

“Here.” Tony shoves something at her. “I don’t really do blue. Or silver. But you can check if Friday got the dimensions right and then we can work on the material.”

It’s a piece of armor plating in his favorite gold-titanium alloy. It’s very light and from the shape she realizes it’s for the plate at her temple. She removes the damaged casing and carefully fits the new piece in. 

Tony taps at the workstation until it displays her face. The edges line up perfectly.

“I like it.”

“You’re a borg after my own heart, Blue. None of those other plebs appreciate style. They all want _black_.”

“Hey, I know it’s late, but sorry we killed your siblings.” Bruce is providing closure in case his radiation experiment kills him. Rocket offered him shielding tips. No one is quite sure what happened when he approached Natasha, and no one really wants to ask. 

“What.” 

“They were your siblings right? They said they were the children of Thanos so I figured… Big guy with the horns? I uhh fired him into a forcefield.” Bruce shifts awkwardly. 

“Good. I hated him.”

“And the one with the blue hair and… horns?”

“Hated her too. I hope she died in pain and in pieces.”

Romanov does something with her eyebrows that might mean ‘close enough’.

“What about the-”

“I hated them all, and the only reason I might feel _any_ grief over their deaths is that I wasn’t the one holding the blade.”

“Oh. Right, well, glad we got that out of the way.” 

“Make him stop.” It’s more of an order than a request, but Pepper just leans back.

“Sorry Nebula, everyone else on Earth had to suffer through the baby videos, so now it’s your turn.” 

Nebula huffs but she doesn’t leave or physically assault Tony. The Morgan in the videos pushes herself up and toddles forward a few steps before her knees give out.

“I was that small once. Thanos came to my planet then. I was the only survivor.”

Nebula frowns in concentration, committing the real Morgan’s sloppy footwork and bright smile to her memory file.

“There won't be any more little girls like me and Gamora. That’s what she- _we_ wanted.” That’s why she answers Danvers’ stupid calls and sits in that ship of ghosts and flies out with no one but a raccoon for company. 

“I’m glad you found yourself. Being an Avenger suits you.” Pepper pulls Morgan’s hand away from Nebula’s blaster.

“Yes, it does.”


End file.
